AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Wow,” Sophia says, and then her voice softens. “What happened?”
“She died at thirty-six, while she was working as my grandfather’s right-hand woman at the company.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Isaac.”
I had known her only a little, being a small kid when she passed, but the story of her is so ingrained in my family that it’s like she’s a living legend. “My father was my grandfather’s only other child. He took the job.”
Her voice turns curious, and a tad cautious. “Was there ever talk of hiring someone else? The family doesn’t technicallyhaveto run it, right? You could just be on the board.”
My lips twist into a half-smile. “People suggested it, yes, and my grandfather threw them out of the room when they did.”
“Oh.”
“He was a man of hard-held beliefs.”
“Did he expect you to present your ideas to him, too? When you were fourteen?”
“No,” I say. “But I did it anyway, when I was sixteen.”
There’s a smile in her voice. “I can almost picture that. Did it impress him?”
“Mine was less visionary,” I admit. “More numbers-based. But I think he enjoyed it. He was less impressed and more… content. Happy that the family legacy would continue, and that my generation wouldn’t be the one to sell out.”
Sophia gives a slow nod. She doesn’t say anything, and I’m glad for that, too. Because I can hear how it sounds when it’s spoken out loud.
“Is he still alive?” she asks.
“He died almost a decade ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “He sounds like an extraordinary man.”
He had been. And as blasphemous as it is to think, it’s easier now that he’s gone, when he’s a legacy to live up to rather than a difficult person to appease. It had been hard to have him visit the Winter in his eighties with opinions, and hard to handle the phone calls when he was disappointed with some aspect or another.
Now I can honor him, and the generation that laid the groundwork before his, without being beholden to them.
But it’s not a thought I’ve ever spoken aloud.
“Tell me about your family,” I say. “How proud are they of your career in the big city?”
Sophia doesn’t seem to mind the abrupt change of topic. “Not very. No, that’s unfair of me. I think they are, but they don’t understand it, or why it means so much to me.”
“Right,” I say. “Seeing as they’re trying to get you to move home and marry your high school sweetheart and all.”
“Gosh, yes. Apparently the cure to a case of post-divorce blues is a solid few months living in my childhood bedroom.”
“With a rebound and some family time,” I say.
“Exactly,” she says. “They mean well, but leaving New York… maybe that’s the right move for me. But I can’t see it yet, anyway.”
I make a lowhummingsound. She feels like the city. Pulsing with energy, sharp and smart and always well-dressed, with a hunger that’s clear in her eyes whenever we talk shop.
“The city would be worse off if you left,” I say.
She’s quiet for a long moment, and when she speaks again, the words are unexpected. “There’s a place up this road that makes the best ramen,” she says. “Do you want to grab some? I’m starving.”
I know what my answer should be.
But I can’t bring myself to say it, not just yet.
